Woman in the Sudetenland weeping upon the annexation of the territory to Nazi Germany.

The American National Archives provides this cropped photo and this caption: "The tragedy of this Sudeten woman, unable to conceal her misery as she dutifully salutes the triumphant Hitler, is the tragedy of the silent millions who have been `won over' to Hitlerism by the `everlasting use' of ruthless force."

This History of the Sudetenland page has the same photo, but also another image (also cropped) which shows more of the original, and has this caption: "Overcome By Emotion — Three Sudetenlanders, one overcome with emotion as she raises her arm in a Nazi salute, pay homage as the Wehrmacht enters the border town of Cheb, October 1938."

A letter to Time Magazine (Nov. 12, 1945), written by Lieutenant Earle A. Cleveland, discusses the emotional state of the depicted woman: "The sobbing woman with arm outstretched in Nazi salute has been consistently interpreted as a symbol of forced obedience to the German conquerors of Czechoslovakia ... The picture was snapped by a German press photographer and first appeared in the National Socialist newspaper, Völkischer Beobachter, in the fall of 1938, shortly after the Sudeten 'Anschluss.' The Nazi explanation was that here were portrayed the intense emotions of joy which swept the Sudeten Germans as Hitler crossed the Czech border at Asch and drove through the streets of the nearby ancient city of Eger [the German name for Cheb], 99% of whose inhabitants were ardently pro-Nazi Sudeten Germans at the time."

This image is available from the Online Public Access (OPA) of the United States National Archives and Records Administration under the National Archives Identifier 535897. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for more information.

Downloaded from https://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/ (photo #78)

ca. 1938

Völkischer Beobachter (National Socialist newspaper)

According to the National Archives:
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted

Because this was originally published by the Nazi regime, the public domain status of this work is only valid within the United States.

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  similar picture with different license
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